Contemplation.

Contemplation

on July 20, 2003.

The skull grins at me 

its ebony pitted 

eye sockets

hold secrets I 

have yet to experience.

~ 

Its former owner vacated 

the premises long before

unwillingly evicted I'm sure.

some failure to pay 

what was medically due

the unhealthy body 

hung below it. 

~

Leaving only this remnant

of what was but is no more.

I purchased it at a 

garage sale in a mouldering 

cardboard box and 

I bought it to study

the innerworkings

of the catedral of a cranium.

It did leave me troubled

at how it came to be 

a twenty dollar item

and where the rest

of it's body might be.

but it was very old

and perhaps was 

absconded from 

some musuem. 

~ 

I lift the hinged top

exposing the empty cavity 

and wondered at the thoughts

that once inhabited 

this calcium temple. 

~

What dreams stretched

and then drove 

themselves relentlessly 

against this wall 

of curved bone 

longing to break free

through the fissures that 

tempted their escape?

~

What electrical impulses

motivated the body 

that hung underneath

this fossiled head ?

~

Where has its 

former inhabitant gone? 

and what's it like 

beyond the shell? 

~

But the skull just grins

at me it's jaw and 

tongue long silenced

it knows the answers

but demands I wait 

until I too am

initiated into 

the brotherhood 

of the dead.

It sits on a shelf 

in my library

and serves as a bookmark

to the many 

passages of my life

a contstant reminder

of my brevity

till I too become

just another bone head

that can no longer

contemplate anything.